Siena support works both ways

Players visit survivors of crash that followed game

Pete Iorizz, Times Union

By Pete Iorizzo

Published 8:23 pm, Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Bailey Wind, 17, and Matt Hardy, 17, seated, were visited by O.D. Anosike, second from left, and other members of the Siena men's basketball team on Wednesday. The players visited Wind and Hardy at Albany Medical Center Hospital where the teens were being treated for injuries they suffered in a Saturday night vehicle crash on the Northway. Anosike posted the photograph on Twitter.
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Bailey Wind, 17, and Matt Hardy, 17, seated, were visited by O.D....

Bailey Wind, 17, and Matt Hardy, 17, seated, were visited by O.D. Anosike, second from left, and other members of the Siena men's basketball team on Wednesday. The players visited Wind and Hardy at Albany Medical Center Hospital where the teens were being treated for injuries they suffered in a Saturday night vehicle crash on the Northway. Anosike posted the photograph on Twitter. (O.D. Anosike via Twitter)

Bailey Wind, 17, and Matt Hardy, 17, seated, were visited by O.D....

Siena players Brett Bisping, O.D. Anosike, Davis Martens, Chris Leppanen as well as student Farshad Sarrafi-Nour visited the high school students injured in the Northway accident that killed two of their friends. (From the Siena athletics Twitter feed)

O.D. Anosike, a senior on the Siena men's basketball team, would have attended Tuesday's vigil at Shenendehowa High School, but the Saints were playing St. Bonaventure in Olean.

So instead, he and several teammates spent half an hour Wednesday at Albany Medical Center visiting Matt Hardy and Bailey Wind, the high school students seriously injured in Saturday's Northway accident that killed their friends, 17-year-olds Chris Stewart and Deanna Rivers.

The four students were returning from Saturday night's game between Albany and Siena at Times Union Center.

"The fact that they were at the game really hit home with me," Anosike said. "They came out to the game to support us. I thought it was only right that I supported them."

Wind, a diver for Shaker High, and Hardy, a football player at Shen, were in good spirits throughout the visit, Anosike said.